Black Tulip: Riviera dress completed

Sunday, 13 September 2026

Riviera dress completed

With apologies to Jane Austen

I am struggling to generate any enthusiasm for making a new corset. This is based entirely on past experiences, which have all involved a lot of work for a less-than-satisfactory result. So far, I have printed off the pattern and then realised that the size pack I bought, several years ago, is now too small for me. Fortunately I only need the next size up and can grade it from the sizes I have, but it's still not a great start.

Naturally my mind started wandering to "What else can I do instead?", and then I spotted my long-neglected Riviera dress.

This one (in case you'd forgotten)

The name comes from the fabric

The dress was almost complete apart from the gathered ribbon trim I had started to sew around the neckline, but this turned out to be a very fiddly and slow job, so I stopped doing it. In October 2023.

This was why I gave up

Suddenly seized by a desire to finish this dress, I unpicked the ribbon on one side and tried an alternative method - which unfortunately turned out to be just as fiddly and slow. This was the point at which I would normally throw the dress onto the back seat of my car, and take it to Mum's for a second opinion. Instead, I tried to imagine what she would suggest. As it's been so long, doing the simplest finish possible to just get the thing done seemed the most likely response. So, I sewed the ribbon flat around the outer curves, and gathered it on the inner curves. Then I pressed out as much of the fullness as I could. Given that the trim was synthetic, and on the straight grain not the bias, it pressed remarkably well. I added a faux bow at the front.

What I did instead

Although it's not in the pattern, I added a waist stay, mainly so that the corded waist detail wouldn't gape at the zip. Then I hemmed the skirt and, a mere 166 weeks later, my 'easy' dress project was finished!